


Wider Than the World

by bellezza



Category: Dalemark Quartet - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: Series Spoilers, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-12
Updated: 2012-09-12
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:58:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/510089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellezza/pseuds/bellezza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or small as in a nut. 50 sentences on Dalemark, past, present, and future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wider Than the World

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this years and years ago. I'm sure it could do with a great deal of revision. But: here you go.
> 
> Beware of spoilers.

39.  **Sky**  - In the beginning, there is the One.

12.  **Door**  - He has many names: Amil, and Adon, and Oreth; they all fall like silver promises from her soft lips as she draws him towards her room.

36.  **Three**  - When it comes time to put the One into his fire, Closti sits his children before the hearth, carefully sets the Undying before his two youngest, and tells them a story of the faraway truth.

47.  **Ugly**  - Hern's taunting laughter ringing in his ears ( _Serves you right, Ugly Duckling!_ ), Duck- _Mallard_ -claws at the bands around his sleeves, scrabbling fingers pinching for a loose thread; he sees the Lady glinting in the firelight across the room, and instead curls up with her in his arms and cries.

30.  **Sudden**  - Kars beams out over his camp, his chest swelling with pride, and quite out of nowhere he is certain Hern would approve.

04.  **Rain**  - Tanaqui opens her eyes, the cool ground beneath her; above her, the River falls from the One's coat in the sky (and Mother is gone, but if feels like Mother, warm and soothing and soft).

45.  **Well**  - The rushing souls sweep downriver, free of Kankredin's spells at last; after the longest decade Anoreth has ever known, she finally joins Closti at sea.

17.  **Lost**  - Hern would shake his head at Gull's aimless travels, but Gull prefers it this way: he takes in the warm sun and the solid earth beneath his boots more vividly than if he had a map to direct him.

25.  **Hard**  - "It can't be us," Mallard says, tired, bewildered, and sad, curled up in that particular way he has done when upset since he was little, "we just can't be, Tanaqui, don't you see? Then that means...we're all alone."

22.  **Blind**  - They both knew with surety that she was inescapably mortal, but Tanamil still feels piercing, wild shock the first time he looks at Robin and realizes that she is old.

24.  **Flight**  - Tanaqui's eyes burn from holding back too many tears-she is strong enough, she expected this, it is not the first; she gently covers Robin's eyes and whispers, "Spread your wings, my thrush, and follow the wind to sea."

38.  **Irony**  - It is not reasonable for a man to lurk behind after his death, not even a king, not even the greatest of Kings, not even the kin of the Undying; nor is it reasonable for Hern to sit in this other world of shadow and story and dream of the sea.

50.  **Dust**  - Harken at all that is left of the great King Kern: cautionary words, untrod roads, and a crumbling city empty of ghosts.

07.  **Soon**  - It takes a couple of centuries, but before long the places and faces all blur together for Duck, like a great River, smooth as glass.

21.  **Weep**  - The hammer smashes into the first nail- _How could they!_  -then into the second- _How_  dare  _they!_  -then into a third; Manaliabrid traps her husband's sword over the hearth with all the magic and fury and bitterness in her Undying body, cursing her ungrateful children all the while.

31.  **Dread**  - The hardest thing, Mallard knows, about being of the Undying is watching your loved ones grow old and die and go out to sea, and knowing you may never follow.

14.  **Wait**  - Clennen is jolly and tender, fiercely loyal, with a streak of righteous honor and a clever mind; Lenina smiles vaguely, patiently content.

06.  **Tense**  - The horse's muscles clench and shift beneath her legs as it moves from trot to canter to gallop: Noreth is  _flying_.

18.  **Cell**  -  _Crying's not shameful_ , Konian tells Kialan one moment when they're alone,  _just don't let them have the pleasure of hearing you do it._

34.  **Words**  - "I  _hear_ ," Clennen says, and, "they  _say_ ;" Brid is so heartily sick of it, she has to bite her tongue to keep from screaming at the silly South to just wake  _up_ already!

05.  **Ocean**  - There's a hush in Aberath one day, and the next  _Wind's Road_ appears in its harbor as if out of nowhere; the Countess sees wheat at the prow, a glint of fruity color on the mast, and the people crowded on the docks pointing at both, and she knows something is about to end.

09.  **Winter**  - No matter how close he gets to the fire, Mitt only gets blisters rather than warmth for his troubles ( _Flaming Ammet! Curse the whole lot of the North and your stupid weather!_ ).

46.  **Token**  - Sneaking past the security Aberath is not difficult for the Undying, least of all for Mage Mallard; Wend slips into the bare room interning Noreth's body, his skin prickling from the cold, and cuts a lock of her hair (he touches a finger to her cheek, but it is colder than the floor and make him shudder).

48.  **Lure**  -  _Grieve not_ , a voice whispers in Mallard's ear, a voice he knows well, though it speaks now soundlessly with no more pressure than a shadow,  _I will help my kin, eh?_

03.  **Vanish**  - That night, they sleep in the largest tent Alk could commandeer from the motley of assembled forces; Mitt and Moril sit side by side and stare into the dark, their voices silenced by grief.

32.  **Burn**  - "A king does not act rashly. He maintains his presence of mind," Navis murmurs to Mitt to keep the king from spurring his horse forward alone, but both men's knuckles are white around their reins as they watch Holand burn.

26.  **War**  - There are bodies piled to the sides of streets, blood stains the dirt roads and gritty brick walls, and Holand harbor has an oily sheen to its surface; the smell is rank; Mitt's stubbornness is all that keeps his stomach in check, but he can taste the blame, sour as bile, in his mouth anyway-it's all his fault, all these bodies, and Keril's words keep ringing round inside his head.

49.  **Drink**  - After Harl's execution, Navis returns to his reclaimed rooms in the Earl's Palace and pours himself a glass of wine; he is not sure to whom or what he drinks (Ynen, Hildy, and Mitt all cross his mind as the goblet fills).

08.  **Why**  - The harder Mitt presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, the more vividly can he see the crazed look dementing Hobin's face; Moril puts an awkward, comforting hand on Mitt's shuddering shoulder as the boy, who is a king, cries.

44.  **Low**  - "As if an illiterate fisherman has what it takes to rule a country," Hildy mutters, kicking angrily at the grass without a care for her shiny black shoes; what really _bothers_  her is the tone in Navis's voice when he told her, all ironic and mocking with the obvious and almost audible (but unspoken) question: "Don't you wish you'd treated him better, Hildrida?"

43.  **Knot**  - Although Biffa is modest, she knows she is intelligent and well-spoken, but there is little idea in her mind of how to respond to Mitt's request.

23.  **Pact**  - "You could marry her by proxy," Navis offers, all bland sarcasm; "Bite you!" Mitt yells back, "Shut UP or I'll have YOU married by proxy to a GOAT!"

15.  **Shrine**  - The weather is pleasant, Hildy will allow, and yes, the scenery is quite pretty, and well, alright, the Islanders are quite nice (if a little odd), but Hildy remembers the young (ancient) red-haired woman asking her if she trusted Mitt, and she decides she prefers Kernsburgh to the Holy Isles any day.

11.  **Storm**  - Navis is a brave man, truly-he has fought and bled and stared down the barrels of guns at then-certain death-but nothing, not an absolute thing, can induce him to get between Eltruda and Hildy during one of their screaming rows.

35.  **Fast**  - "I'm going to open a Music School!" Brid declares in her best  _look at me_  voice; next week Kialan finds her in the sitting room, interviewing applicants.

42.  **Fair**  - One Midsummer there's a girl-they dance, and she takes his hand and leads him out into the garden, then kisses him softly on the lips-but her hair is straight and flaxen instead of curly brown, her skin pale-smooth instead of freckled, and Moril leaves without even asking her name.

37.  **Place**  - At times when being Amil becomes too much for any man, Mitt closes his eyes, breathes deep, and remembers his perfect land: the rolling green hills, the golden crests of waving wheat, the clear blue sky, and the cool, briny, ever-present smell of the sea.

29.  **Deep**  - Total silence as Navis surveys the plans Mitt has drawn up for his own tomb (already an absurd notion he tries not to consider in any depth), then: "Well, you'll certainly be remembered as the most  _ridiculous_  king in Dalemark history."

16.  **Black**  - The kingdom is in a national state of court mourning, with funerary pennants hung in the more secular Southern style; Moril dons the minimum customary black armband, but Mitt forgoes it ("That's a laugh, mourning my own funeral!").

27.  **Deed**  -  _We erect this statue in honor of Amil the Great, King of Dalemark, who came at the beckoning of the Undying to guide our country through war, sorrow, and blood to a great era of everlasting peace, unity, innovation, and prosperity._

41.  **Real**  - "How d'you do it?" Mitt croaks, slumped miserably front-to-back in one of Cennoreth's hard wooden chairs; a week ago, Moril had been at his side, but now the only ones left are people made of nothing more than stories and myth; Cennoreth gives Mitt a long, sad look, and answers, "We don't."

10.  **Fallen**  - Mitt is in Wend's doorway, blocking the only way out of the apartment (he cannot escape through the window, not with the cwidder on his back); "I've been wanting to talk to you," Mitt says, and grabs Wend's arm when he tries to push past, "so would you just stop running for one sodding minute, you fool!"

40.  **Closet**  - There is a box in the back of Maewen's closet, as well-hidden from Aunt Liss as anything can be; in it are a dress she hasn't worn since her thirteenth summer, shorts and a blouse from the same time, and photocopies and clippings she started collecting after she visited her father:  _Crown Prince Swayed from Renaming Tannoreth Palace_  reads one, and another:  _UD Professor Draws Connection Between Undying Myths and Real History._

01.  **Mortal**  - "He's  _two hundred years old_!" Maewen thinks, feeling a little delirious (what are four years to the Undying?).

33.  **Clock**  - Cennoreth's eyes crinkle with fondness, but there is pity in her smile, and Maewen knows before the Weaver speaks what she is going to say.

13.  **Flash**  - History class becomes an entirely new, if not unexpected experience; Maewen feels a little jolt at every anecdote, every picture, every name that she recognizes.

19.  **Villain**  - They are on the Southern Uprising now; the teacher writes  **HOLAND**  and  **WAYWOLD**  on the board, followed by  **KINGSTONE** , and then  **HOBIN THE BLOODY** -Maewen utters a cry of surprise-( _"Out of ink," she stammers when the class stares_ )-that simply  _can't_  be right!

02.  **Broken**  - If the Singer boy's portrait had fascinated her before, now Maewen looks at it hungrily, fiercely wishing she had been able to do  _something_  about that disconsolate look in Moril's eyes (and not even supposing she might have been a reason for it).

28.  **Unknown**  - The letters on the stone are faded after a hundred and fifty years of wear; Maewen traces her fingers through the bumps and indentations and cries for all the things she has-not-cannot-will-not say ( _I'm sorry I love you I wish you were smiling you were my best friend_ ).

20.  **Road**  - The train is not two miles out of Adenmouth when Mitt sits down in the seat across from Maewen; he smiles that familiar cocky smile and says, "Paths of the Undying. Come here often, do you?"


End file.
